Church of All Saints

Church of All Saints, Worthen

Parish church of late 12th and 13th-century date, with a chancel rebuilt in 1761. The church was restored in 1846–47 and again in 1924. It is constructed mainly of uncoursed limestone rubble with red sandstone ashlar dressings; the chancel is of red brick. The roofs are slate. The building comprises a nave, chancel, north tower, south porch and south-east vestry.

Tower

The tower is of 12th-century construction up to its string course, with large slabs of shillet forming alternating angle quoins and massive buttresses (probably 17th century) to the east and west sides. The top stage is Perpendicular, featuring cusped two-light openings with quatrefoils above. The 18th-century parapet has plain corner obelisks and a shallow pyramidal roof with a lead spirelet and brass weathercock. Two rectangular chamfered windows light the north face, with a clock above. The 12th-century round-headed doorway below has crudely chamfered voussoirs and a 17th-century plank door.

Nave

The long nave has roughly hewn sandstone quoins at the north-east and north-west angles. The north side displays 19th-century windows with geometrical tracery to either side of the tower, with a 17th-century buttress to the far left. The west window of four lights has simple panel tracery and dates to the 19th century (as does the cinquefoiled cusped roundel above), though it is said to copy a Perpendicular window. The south side has four large 17th-century buttresses and two 19th-century windows with cusped geometrical tracery. A window with reticulated tracery immediately to the left of the third buttress from the west also appears to be 19th-century work. A late 17th-century gabled timber porch on the south side has roughly turned balusters and a collar and tie beam roof, with 19th-century fretted bargeboards and finial. The 13th-century pointed south doorway has continuous moulding and hoodmould.

Chancel

The chancel has two round-headed windows with gauged heads on the north side, one on the south, and one on the east. It features a dentilled eaves cornice and coped verges to the east gable. A black stone gabled vestry was added to the south in 1846.

Interior

The interior contains a magnificent 14th-century nave roof of upper cruck construction in seven bays. The roof features arch-braced collars with cusped V-struts and four tiers of purlins, the upper three of which are moulded. The roof was restored when an 18th-century plaster ceiling was removed in 1924.

The principal feature of the interior is the seating. Jacobean box pews of various patterns (mainly with round-headed arches) line both sides of the nave and occupy the centre at the rear. They have pendant knobs and cock's-head hinges and were cut down and rearranged in 1846. The pew to the front on the north side (the squire's pew) bears the Kynnaston family coat-of-arms. Open wooden benches with pendant knobs (generally squatter than those of the pews) occupy the centre to the front of the nave. These probably date to the 16th century, though it has been suggested they are medieval and were remodelled in the 17th century. Further Jacobean woodwork is incorporated in the choir stalls. A 13th-century pointed north doorway leading to the tower has a panelled door made up from dismantled pews around 1931. A plain octagonal font, heavily scraped and with a 19th-century circular base, probably dates to the 14th or 15th century.

The pointed chancel arch is probably 14th-century in origin but was reconstructed in 1761 when the present chancel was built. The chancel retains 18th-century texts on wooden boards, pedimented to the east wall and with moulded entablatures on the north and south. A plaster ceiling with moulded cornice dates to 1785–86. A Jacobean communion table is also present.

Late 19th and 20th-century stained glass appears in various windows throughout the church. Two 19th-century boards recording benefactions to the church are displayed in the vestry.

Monument

A memorial to Dr Daniel Price, rector, Dean of Hereford and Chaplain to Charles I, stands on the south chancel wall. Price died in 1631 but the monument is dated 1633. It features a strapwork achievement flanked by debased Ionic columns and surmounted by a coat-of-arms.

Historical context

Although not recorded in Domesday Book, the church at Worthen is of pre-Conquest origin. The large size of the parish suggests that it may originally have been a minster.